The Grim Reaper of the Sea
by redstarsarc
Summary: Davy Jones comes to inspect a shipwreck in the Devil's Triangle. He wasn't expecting the curse that has taken Salazar and the crew of the Silent Mary. ONE-SHOT.


**A/N: This piece came about because I wondered what would happen if Davy Jones ever met Salazar. I hope you enjoy.**

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The Grim Reaper of the Sea

With a tremendous rush, the _Flying Dutchman_ rose from the sea. Water cascaded over her decks and the splintered planks of her prow like the jagged maw of a fearsome beast, and her sails flapped, found no wind, and fell still. The ship groaned and the rigging creaked.

One by one, her cursed crew squeezed themselves through the walls and came upon the weather deck, an assortment of weapons held at the ready. Following was their captain, tentacles writhing across his chest.

Davy Jones sneered. The vessel before them was a complete wreck, having collided with the rocks. Her powder magazine had blown and fire flickered across her deck. The mainmast had broken and sagged in the water. There would not likely be any survivors.

"Search it," Jones ordered. His crew eagerly obeyed, hoping to find fresh blood. Jones hesitated, scanning the wreckage. He was reminded of his duty, the reason for which he'd been named captain of the _Flying Dutchman._ To ferry the souls of those who died at sea to the other side. To Fiddler's Green. He had forsaken that task when Calypso betrayed him and he didn't give a damn for those lost, wretched souls.

Limping on his stiff leg, Jones arrived on the main deck of the _Silent Mary_. Just one more ship claimed by the Devil's Triangle.

He spied the first body in the shadow of the fo'c'sle. An officer of the Spanish navy by the looks of him, his arm torn clean off by debris. The second body was only part of a torso and a foot. Jones walked among the ruined dead, eyes searching for bodies that might still have life in them. Souls that would pledge their service to him and the _Dutchman_.

There was no sound, no slide of steel from sheathe, no footfall, but something in the air changed and Jones spun, drawing his claymore in one smooth motion. It clashed heavily with a cutlass. And on the other side of those locked swords stood a man. His uniform tattered, flesh broken up into black rivulets, hair drifting in a cloud about his face, he was no living man.

Jones' tentacles twitched. "You are dead," he stated. "I am not here for you yet you have not moved on. Why?"

The man's chest moved with breaths he did not need. His mouth worked as if he'd forgotten how to use it.

"I…I am not dead," he rasped. "I am not dead."

Jones shifted and their swords slid apart and he clamped his claw around the man's throat.

"You should be in the depths. Drifting lost through the sea between worlds."

The dead man didn't seem too concerned with the claw around his throat. He smiled. Tar oozed from between his teeth and down his chin. "You are Capitan Davy Jones, no? The grim reaper of the sea. A pirate."

There were footsteps, ones that didn't belong to Jones' crew and suddenly bodies were emerging from the wooden planks and rising out of the sea. Ghosts whose appearances were frozen in the moment of their deaths. Ghosts with missing limbs, with ragged holes in their torsos, some appearing wet and drowned.

"My name is Capitan Armando Salazar," the ghost said. "I hunt pirates."

The ghosts drew swords on Jones' crew as if they were sailors on a common prize. Koleniko swiped at one, his sword cutting clean through the spirit's chest but it remained unaffected.

Salazar grinned.

Jones' lip twitched.

"I am not prey, _Captain_." Jones sneered. "I care not for your actions in life, only that you sought the devil and you have found him."

Salazar moved with deadly speed. Steel clashed as Jones deflected his blade. And then again and again. Blades flashing through the air, faster than the eye could follow, each blow strong enough to numb a mortal man's arm.

Salazar spun away from Jones' thrust and slashed at his ribs. Jones gasped from the pain but it did not bleed and he did not slow.

"I was called a devil myself," Salazar said as they broke away. " _El Matador del Mar_ , they called me. I invoked true fear in the hearts of all those who call themselves pirates."

Jones delivered a powerful blow which Salazar barely managed to block and Jones forced him back several steps to the portside rail.

"In your arrogance, you presumed to have the rule of the sea," Jones said. "But a man cannot tame that which is bound to another." He struck out with his massive claw, going straight through Salazar's face.

And then they were fighting again, faster, harder, each blow threatening to snap their blades as both cursed crews looked on. And as they fought, the anger in Jones began to build. Here was a man who did not fear him, a man he could neither kill nor pressgang, a man who was immune to his law. He cursed Calypso as he did every day since her betrayal. It would be like her to create something so perverse on nothing more than a whim if she had a mind to. A place where souls could never rest and never find peace.

Jones roared and rained blows onto Salazar, faster, faster, until the Spaniard's blade clattered across the deck. For the briefest moment, anger and a touch of fear mingled in his gaze and Jones took pleasure in it.

"The sea is mine," Jones said. "And her secrets are mine to know." He looked across the deck to his crew and the ghosts among them. "This place has had a curse cast upon it. These men are not _ours_ to take. Grateful they should be at that," he said and laughed. Several of his crew joined in but stopped when he did.

"But neither," he continued, rounding on Salazar, "can they escape." He leaned closer to Salazar whose expression was one of barely contained rage. "There are worse things than death, Captain," he murmured. "I'll leave you to your eternity."

Tentacles curling in satisfaction, Davy Jones clomped back across the deck toward the _Dutchman_ and the ghosts silently let him pass.

His crew followed and the _Flying Dutchman_ sank back into the sea, leaving the ghosts of the _Silent Mary_ to their darkness and cruel eternity.


End file.
